Solutions for B2B Marketers

Executives are a challenging audience to reach. They rely even more than others on advice and perspectives of their true peers and those they perceive to be authentic experts and creditable sources. They know the information they need and value, and do not want to waste time with sales pitches and lightweight stories.

CorporateLeaders with its community of 8,000+ senior executives can help marketers and sales executives reach decision makers, develop relationships and trust by executing plans that will develop leads, deliver thought leadership and build brand awareness with this increasingly hard to reach and selective audience.

Content is King

Engaging executives is not about sales campaigns, it’s about re-channeling your focus, efforts, and budget from customer acquisition to customer and relationship development. The B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report found that 90% of marketers are using content marketing to grow their businesses, with the most effective formats for engaging executives and delivering their message being:

In person events (67%)

Case studies (64%)

Webcasts (61%)

Events are enormous content marketing opportunities. Well-orchestrated events hold tremendous potential for content marketers. In fact, 67% of marketers said “in-person events” were effective – a higher rating than any other tactic. This is because events are a news hook; they provide something to talk about, to write about, to photograph or to capture on video and then share – before, during and after the event.

These findings align with CorporateLeaders in-depth experience with executives that consistently shows that they engage when ideas can be presented, pulled apart and repackaged in different formats — online and offline, audio, video, and the written word reaching them when, where and how they want it. For example:

Executives like to hear from peers in a select number of high-value, high-touch, in-person round table events; client case studies and peer keynotes are very effective.

White papers and reports work very well with executives when they are to the point and contain compelling data.

Third-party publications — if they are the ones executives read — are great for placing compelling stories of what other executives have done or detail data that shows it’s time to pay attention to a trend or an opportunity.

Marketing Challenges

The MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey found that driving leads and developing relationships is the number one objective of B2B marketers but they are challenged with having the resources to accomplish this goal even though they have to do it without a lot of help. The survey found that working with a limited budget (28%) and limited staff (23%) were the top two marketing challenges.

As a result, an increasing number (55%) of marketers are outsourcing the development and execution of content programs with video, white paper and case study development being outsourced the most.

CorporateLeaders can help complement your marketing actives by working in partnership to co-create and achieve your objectives by providing an independent perspective avoiding content being perceived as salesy and lightweight.

By continually building and maintaining our community of executives, we are trusted and regarded as authentic experts and a creditable source. For our partners this speeds up the acceptance and value of content, saving you time, money, freeing up resources and providing the skills to complement your team and activities.